creatività
One coherent description of the creative process that has managed to integrate some of the factors mentioned above comes from Poincaré, a French mathematician who lived in the second half of the 19th century. Poincaré described four steps that go into creativity, steps which were specific to mathematical problem solving but that can still be bent without much trouble to apply to other types of creative problem solving as well. Poincaré’s first step was preparation, in which one works on and thinks about the problem. One builds up a broad knowledge base, assembling the relevant facts and thinking about them consciously and deeply for a long time. The second step is incubation, which takes place away from the conscious mind. Here, one takes a break from the problem and thinks about something else for a while, letting the unconscious wander and associate freely. The third step is illumination: Archimedes’ moment of “Eureka!”, the point at which a solution comes to the conscious mind from the unconscious one as though it fell from the sky. A creative solution may not always be right, however, even if - or maybe even particularly if, it feels as though it fell from the sky. Poincaré’s fourth step, therefore, was verification, which is possibly the stage of the creative process that requires the least creativity. Here, one checks to see how well the solution actually works. If it does not, one presumably goes back and tries again.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/vaidya
